


What a Good Year for the Roses

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gardens & Gardening, Loss of Identity, M/M, Magic, Melancholy, Oblivious Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Pining Arthur, Roses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22068103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: Each day, Arthur spends half an hour in the rose garden tending his mother’s favourite roses. He does this alone, preferring not to be observed in this vulnerable moment.Each day, Merlin spends half an hour away from the clotpole, picking herbs in the kitchen garden. Sometimes he lingers, smelling the fragrant rosemary bushes and remembering home. He sings then, snatches of half-remembered songs from his mother, sometimes embellishing them with compositions of his own.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 226
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10





	What a Good Year for the Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to the wonderful Clea and LFB72 for the lightning fast beta. Happy New Year :) 
> 
> Title from the eponymous George Jones classic - the best version of which will forever be the one sung by Elvis.  
> Elvis Costello, that is. https://youtu.be/1hBWBVVFA4c

***

As Arthur inhales sharply, eyes closing, the dizzy rose-scented air and the ecstatic hum of the bees transport him back to his childhood. 

_“Careful, now, Your Highness,”_ growls out the voice of Thomas, the old gardener, in his head. He’s been dead these fifteen years or more, a victim of his advanced age, but his advice to Arthur all those years ago, as a child of maybe four summers, lingers. _“Always cut just above a leaf. Just snip the dead blooms, now. And take care of the thorns. They’re no respecters of royal fingers.”_

Wincing, Arthur lifts a finger to his mouth at the ghost of the memory of the sharp jab that had penetrated the pad of his finger. It had wept with blood, all those years ago, but he had remained silent, biting his lip while Thomas had dealt kindly but firmly with the outcome. 

He places the blades against the stalk now and snips above the leaf in accordance with Thomas’s remembered instructions. The bloom comes away in his hand. A sense of peace steals across him as he buries his nose in it, the familiar fragrance one that calms him and fills him with love for the mother he lost and never knew. These were Queen Ygraine’s roses and this her private garden, a living connection to her that Arthur steals time to renew whenever he can, dismissing all the staff and knights so that he can be alone with his thoughts. Most especially he makes time to visit them in the summer when their showy pink flowers reach their peak and their scent wafts across the citadel in thick, sweet clouds. 

He insists on tending the garden himself. 

Over time, it has become forgotten by the garden-keepers and serving staff until now only he has the key to the anonymous wooden door that leads out into its green, sun-drenched embrace. The space is tiny, after all. A mere line of wall that abuts the adjacent kitchen garden, it is not missed. Perhaps one day, if he ever marries, he will share it with his love. But for now it is a private space that he curates with his bare hands using water that he pumps from a secret well, and tools that he keeps sharp with the whetstone he uses for his whittling knife. 

On most days, a burst of song reaches him from one of the servants, a man who must be gathering herbs from the kitchen gardens. He has a fine tenor voice, and his songs are like nothing that Arthur has heard from the rarefied echelons of the nobility - all soaring notes and obscure topics. Instead, the man sings peasant tunes, lusty ditties of love and devotion, of hard work and the passing of the seasons, his voice merging with the sweet song of the robin who sits on the handle of Arthur’s fork. The songs transport Arthur to another world - one where his duties fall away, and the simple peasant life is all that matters. And what’s more, they sing of the love of another man - a love that is forbidden, but true. 

Arthur falls into dreams that he would never articulate to another living soul. He guards those moments too, with a selfish and jealous zeal, for they are his and his alone.

***

Today, the weight of the crown is heavy upon his head, and his temples ache with the grief that follows him around like an unwanted cur. His father has fallen, too soon, far too soon. No matter what Merlin might say to the contrary, Arthur feels ill prepared to take on the burdens of kingship. 

“Get out, you clumsy incompetent!” he cries, when the serving wench who brings his breakfast drops a tankard, clattering to the floor. He has only just got out of bed, and already his head is throbbing. “Get out, before I have you sacked!” 

It’s bad enough that the tankard’s contents spill across the stone, but even worse that the girl flashes him a look of pity and understanding rather than fear before she backs out of his chambers, leaving shards of pottery scattering the floor amid the shreds of Arthur’s dignity. 

“Useless, clumsy buffoon!” he yells at Merlin, whose fingernail catches against Arthur’s skin as he adjusts the fit of the collar on Arthur’s tunic. Merlin doesn’t even blink; he nods and smiles instead, a smile so full of empathy that Arthur wants to throw something at it. 

By lunchtime, he has argued with the council, with his first knight, and a visiting minor noble who has a pathetic grievance that makes Arthur want to grind his teeth. Inevitably, the fuming Arthur finds his feet turning towards the garden to seek solace. He rubs at his aching temples as he walks. 

“Sire.” Sir Leon hurries after him. “Will you be attending training this afternoon.” 

“Just leave me alone!” roars Arthur. “Of course I will be there! But for now, I do not wish to be disturbed. Do you understand?” 

“Aye, sire. Of course.” Sympathy flits across Leon’s face as he bows. 

Christ. The servants are bad enough, but his knights as well? Is he that transparent? Does all of Camelot feel sorry for him? It’s more than Arthur can bear. He hurries through the familiar corridors, ignoring all in his path. Finally, he reaches a humble wooden door in an obscure, forgotten part of the citadel, and steps out into the sun’s warm glare. At the waft of rose-laden air, his heart calms. Across the wall in the kitchen garden, someone, he does not know who, lifts their melodious tenor voice in song. The words are those of a rustic melody that makes Arthur smile, but the voice rings out, sweet and true, and it raises in him a powerful longing that he cannot trace. 

He has come to expect it, this voice. Somehow, its owner finds himself in the kitchen garden whenever Arthur escapes from his duties to meander around the roses. No matter the time of day, whether it is first thing after breakfast or late in the evening when the sun is finally sinking and the air is thick and heavy with pollen, the voice is always there, its soothing tones a warm counterpoint to the melancholic reverie that falls over Arthur as he contemplates his lost mother. He questions it sometimes, this uncanny knack that the singer has to seek Arthur out in his most vulnerable moments, but mostly he just accepts the comfort that it offers, a comfort that he rarely finds in his life outside the four crumbling walls of this sheltered little garden. 

And so the summer passes, the heat passing in a burst of thunder that hurls squalls at the surrounding forests, but thanks to the wall it leaves the garden and its precious roses intact. Each day, Arthur dismisses his staff and escapes into his personal paradise. And each day, his curiosity about the singer whose voice haunts his dreams grows. 

***

Arthur sniffs. “Can you smell something, Merlin?” 

“Apart from unwashed knight, you mean?” Merlin grimaces as he pulls Arthur’s tunic over his head. “Gods, Arthur. Do you have to train in your chambers? It’s not exactly edifying and it makes the whole place stink, no matter how much rosemary I put up.” 

“Not that, you idiot.” Cuffing his manservant upside the head, but not hard, Arthur sends him a mock glare. “Honestly. I do wonder if you were dropped on the head as a child or something.” 

“At least I’m not a gross-smelling, entitled arse,” grumbles Merlin in a quiet voice that nonetheless carries. 

“What did you say?” 

“I said, at least I just smell of rosemary and grass.” 

“That’s not what you said.” 

“Well, what do you expect me to say?” Merlin rubs his head, wincing. “Bully.” 

“Insolent peasant.” 

This exchange elicits wry smiles on both sides, and lifts Arthur’s spirits for a moment. The weather has been vile for what seems like weeks, seemingly with no let-up, and Arthur is fed up with being trapped indoors. He misses the forest, the sharp scent of the pine trees and the excitement of the hunt. Most of all, he misses the freedoms that he had as a prince. 

Rosemary. It’s rosemary that he can smell. Merlin has bedecked Arthur’s chambers with it. The scent of rosemary reminds Arthur of his mother, and of the rose garden. At this time of year, the roses are gone, replaced by plump red rosehips that he clips to adorn his room but that lack the flowers’ sweet fragrance. Instead, the little rose garden fills with the herby scents from the other side of the wall; rosemary, thyme and lavender mingled with the wood-smoke smell of Camelot’s chimneys.

Merlin always smells of herbs, and now that Arthur can put a name to the plant, he knows why this particular herb fills him with such longing. Longing born of his mother, and her rose garden, and the man’s voice that he hears in it. Suddenly, he doesn’t want that feeling pervading his chambers, filling him with melancholy from the moment he wakes. 

“Get rid of it, Merlin,” he says, abruptly. He grabs a sprig of the dense, dark needles and tosses it in his manservant’s face. “I don’t want that stuff in here.” 

“But sire…”

“Now, Merlin!” bellows Arthur. 

There’s a flash of hurt in Merlin’s eyes before he stomps off, which makes Arthur want to hit things. That day in the rose garden, the singer laments a lost love who cares nothing for him. The melancholy music fits Arthur’s mood perfectly. 

***

In the deepest midwinter, when all the people stay hidden from view, closeted in their rooms where they burn through firewood until you can taste the smoke in the air, Arthur still strolls through the bitterly cold rose garden, touching on the prickled, bare, bloom-free branches. The garden is silent. Not even the robin lifts his voice in song. The singer, whoever he is, has left Arthur as everyone always does. 

Even Merlin is gone. Away to visit his mother for yuletide. Although at least Merlin will return, as surely as a bad penny. But he will be gone for a sennight or more. As he scuffs his boots through the frosted leaves, Arthur mourns his solitude and wishes he had never allowed Merlin leave. 

But yule passes, as it always does, and in the dim mornings of the newly awakening year, Arthur visits his little garden and sees the robin, bright and cheerful, perched on a branch and trilling out his tune. A familiar tenor voice lifts in counterpoint, his song filling Arthur with delight and a forbidden desire that makes his chest ache. 

Sorcery. It has to be sorcery. It is the only explanation Arthur can think of for the way that this simple sound can pierce his heart and leave his lips and legs trembling so. There is a sorcerer in the citadel, and he is enchanting Arthur with his siren’s call. 

Arthur grabs his fork and runs out of the garden, pausing only to lock the wooden door before dashing through the corridors to the kitchen. He hurtles out into the kitchen garden, ignoring the shocked faces of the cook and her staff. There it is! The voice that he hears in his dreams! He runs after it, hope rising in his chest. 

But the voice stops abruptly and as Arthur skitters around the corner into a patch of winter cabbages, he finds no-one there but Merlin, newly returned from Ealdor clutching a basket of herbs. 

Disappointed, Arthur drops his fork and presses his lips together in a determined, flat line. 

“Where is he?” yells Arthur, clutching, Merlin’s neck scarf and pulling him in close. “The man that was here? The sorcerer who sings? Who is it?” 

Merlin shakes his head dumbly. “There’s no-one here but me and a bullying clotpole with a twig in his hair.” 

“What?” Arthur lifts a hand, extracting a single rose leaf with a frown. “But he was here. I heard him! Singing!” 

“I swear that there was no-one here!” 

“Why would you hide his identity from me?” yells Arthur, beyond the end of his patience. “Tell me who he is, or I’ll have you thrown in the dungeons! Why are you protecting him? Has he enchanted you, too?”

“I’m not hiding any such thing!” yells Merlin back.

“You’re forgetting who you are.” White hot with rage, Arthur grabs the protesting Merlin’s jacket and pushes him before him into the kitchen. But no-one there will tell him who the singer was, either. 

Even though he visits Merlin every day in the dungeon to demand information, the singer never comes back. Finally, in a fit of despair, Arthur sends Merlin back to Ealdor and tells him to stay there until he’s ready to tell Arthur the truth. 

Arthur’s heart grows as cold as the weather. The citadel falls silent and the people scatter wherever Arthur shows his face. 

***

On one side of the garden, perpetual shade prevents most plants from getting a foothold. But in the springtime, tiny knots of green start to push through the damp soil - leaves of lily of the valley, a tiny white flower that thrives in these damp, dark spaces. Soon, the delicate bells are beginning to burst out, their scent filling the garden with sweetness. The song of the robin trills, pure and true, but no tenor voice lifts in counterpoint, and Arthur feels its loss deeply. 

In springtime, too, the first hints of bindweed and ground elder start to poke out. Arthur digs at these with his bare hands when he can, pulling free the ugly white roots and storing them in a pile that he carefully removes for burning. 

A memory brings a wry smile as he does this. When he was small, Thomas had told him that he should sift the soil to remove every trace of ground elder root, or it would come back stronger than ever. It would rise up and choke the roses and lilies of the valley, the love-in-the-mist and the forget-me-nots that he loved.

_“Is this what you do, every winter?” Arthur remembers saying, his piping voice not yet deepening to adult tones, as he shook the sieve from side to side, picking out gnarled white roots from among the woven strands that cage them._

_“Aye, young prince.” Thomas leant on his fork, the old one with the splayed out tines that Arthur still uses to this day, his old face crinkling as he smiles. “That I do.”_

_“Then how come it still comes back every year?”_

_Thomas chuckled, making his face split into a thousand cracks. “Ah, you got me there. See, here?” he poked in the soil near the rose bush, unearthing a white root. “Should I dig this out?”_

_“Yes!” Arthur peered at it, touching it with a small hand. “It’s ground elder, isn’t it?”_

_“Ah, there young sire. And just beyond it, the roots of the rose. See? What do you think will happen if I take this root back to its origin and remove it altogether?”_

_“You’ll get rid of the ground elder.” Arthur frowned. “But it will damage the rose as well.”_

_“That’s the way of it, your highness.” Thomas resumed his digging, away from the precious rose. “We keep it under control, sire, but we leave what we have to, because we don’t want to kill the roses, now, do we? And so the ground elder comes back, but at least we have roses.”_

That had been what, fifteen years ago or more? But the ground elder Arthur pulls out now reminds him of this forgotten conversation, and a wave of realisation washes over Arthur. How can he have been so stupid. He has sent Merlin away as if he were some bitter weed, and the man with the beautiful voice who filled Arthur with longing and hope went away with him. What if they were not two people after all? What if by losing Merlin he has lost his own sense of joy at the same time? 

Was there magic in the man’s voice? Arthur doesn’t even know any more. He just knows that he wants Merlin back. 

Abruptly, at some hidden signal, the robin ceases its song and flies away, leaving Arthur alone in the sudden silence.

***

When summer comes again and with it a rosebud, Arthur knows what he must do.

He waits for the first rose of summer, and when its dark red petals start to unfold he plucks the blooms from the bush one by one and mounts his charger, a precious burden clutched close to his bosom. Surefooted as ever, Llamrei takes him to Ealdor where he dismounts in front of a small cottage. From within this home, a voice rises in song, plaintive and sad. Familiar feelings wash over him - of love, and sorrow, a sacred bond between two men, and a duty to destiny that transcends time. 

He kneels on the threshold, head bowed and humble as the door creaks open, holding the impossibly bright blooms in front of him as an apology. A familiar pair of elegant hands removes them. 

“Took you long enough, clotpole,” whispers a voice. 

“I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” says Arthur, all elaborate words and speeches escaping his mind as he gazes up into stormy blue eyes. 

“Are you apologising? Miracles do happen.”

“Forgive me. Come back to me. Please.”

A half smile twists at Merlin’s mouth. “I’ll think about it.” 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters. I'm not getting paid for this work.


End file.
